In the 1950s kids probably played cowboys and indians, pointed their fingers and said pow pow. I remember doing this as a kid role playing star wars with my friends. One guy even brought a toy gun to school for holloween as part of his costume. Teachers thought it was cute and innocent. Our country was a different place. More free than it is today.

I would think a parent conference in most cases would have been sufficient to let the parent and child know why it isn't appropriate to play like this at school anymore in light of current events. These would have been "teachable moments".

If a kid is really considered disturbed enough to be making a credible threat, what are they going to do with their two days off? Plan an attack? How does that make the school a safer place?

In the 50s kids didn't dare threaten a teacher. They knew they would have gotten a good wipping. When they fought to settle differences behind the gym and were caught they weren't sent home. They were forced to look one another in the eye, shake hands and agree to move past their differences rather than being suspended by zero tolerance rules and sent home to brood about what happened and figure out a way to get even......

Yesterday I saw the one about the strawberry snack but the one about the pizza was a surprise. I think it's pathetic that kids are getting in trouble for such nonsense. Let them be kids! just as you stated, let it be a teaching moment.

This kind of crap is totally out of hand. When I was a kid we used to take toy cap guns, etc to school and play with them at recess or use sticks to mimic rifles and stuff. We roamed the neighborhood with our toy guns playing army or cowboys and indians and nobody ever became a evil killer becuase of it. Now if a kid does that he is immediately punished and made to feel guilty for just being a kid and treated as if he was a crazed serial killer. Parents need to say enough is enough and stand up to this.

I was in high school in the late 1980's. Back then, folks still had the archetypal gun rack in the pickup truck. It wasn't uncommon for students to leave guns in the car if we planned on shooting after school. This was with full knowledge of the faculty.

The difference was, nobody every thought of bringing a gun into school. We just didn't have school shootings. Nor do I ever remember hearing anything about anyone hurting themselves through negligence.

So, what happened? Society changed. We had school shootings, and the anti-gun lobby gained ascendance in the political arena. It was decided that guns should be demonized and ostracized. Workplaces were encouraged to ban them, and we were sold the idea of gun-free school zones.

We had a whole generation that was taught to fear and despise guns. They went from simple tools to being totem objects of scorn and distrust. We've got quite a job ahead of us in reversing that perception.

__________________
Sometimes it’s nice not to destroy the world for a change.
--Randall Munroe

From the ABC article: "The official said the point of the punishment is to make it clear that guns aren’t acceptable."

Based on that quote, I tend to think that a large part of the problem is that the school is indoctrinating a socio-political opinion rather than teaching. Teaching can include lessons on acting responsibly and appropriately, but "guns aren't acceptable" denies the clear facts that there are responsible gun owners, and that the possession and use of firearms is not only not illegal, but a protected right. Suppressing facts to push one's political agenda is poor teaching; if it teaches anything, it teaches dishonesty.

Well it's easier to make these one size fit all policies than do it case by case. Because each parent thinks their kid is special and will sue the school if little Timmy is singled out for doing something inappropriate. That's the real problem. All these zero-tolerance laws and rules are because if you don't enforce the same rules for everyone, you get sued for discrimination.

When I was in 8th grade, a popular game among my peers was "Assassin."

That game involved a referee putting the players' names in a hat, and each person drawing a name. The name drawn would be the intended hit.

Assassination methods were given point values for creativity. Vaseline on somebody's locker represented contact poison. A recording device that told the person he'd just activated a bomb and blown himself up represented said bomb.

Of course, the less creative, less point-winning, but more generally surefire method of shooting one's target with a pistol (either rubber dart pistol or rubber soft bb pistol) was the most common method.

Most of our "hits" were carried out at school, typically in stairwells. Once the first round of hits were finished, "survivors" drew a new victim and the next round began.

Teachers gave some of the guys detention, for shooting their victims in class...

As far as I know, none of the players (male or female) later became violent criminals.

Some went military, some became artists, some became professors. I think one became a journalist.

An Imperial Tobacco marketing research report from 1977 noted:
Of course, one of the very things that are attractive is [the] mere fact that cigarettes are forbidden fruit…when the adolescent is looking for something that at the same time makes them feel different and also makes them feel that they are old enough to ignore this weight of authority so as to feel that they have made their own choice, what better could be found than a cigarette? It is not just a smoke. It is a statement, a naughty adventure, a milestone episode.

...studies have also shown that kids with parents who adopt a strict policy of restricting junk eat more of it when confronted with unlimited piles and given permission to cram in as much as they'd like.

Why would anyone think that teaching children that guns are bad-bad-bad would be any different?

If the effect is the same, these policies will produce kids who are more likely to mess with a gun, if they find one, not less -- and they won't have a clue about how to be safe.

Demystify the guns, give the kids age-appropriate safety lessons, and they'll be safer. Not only that, they'll love learning about these grown-up things, and they'll be more likely to treat them with respect.

__________________"Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding."
(Milan Kundera, Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1980)

Zero Tollerance just like all the other mandates by the government take away the teacher and school administrators the flexibility to teach our children as individual's. This is early training for the type of soceity many in government are trying to lead us too.

Mleake, the way I read the reports available yesterday afternoon you are correct. If he was suspended for refusing to give a statement until he was represented by legal counsil that is one thing. Maybe he refused to give a statement so he could survive in that school. I went to school in the 60's and early 70's and although we also brought our 22 rifles to school and even got onto the school bus with them being branded a "Snitch" was a bad thing with many fellow students.

My couple of thoughts, Have a great day!
James

__________________
“Government does few things well but it does them at great expense” Cal Thomas “When Government Can’t Be Trusted” 6/11/2013

This demonization of firearms makes me sick. When I was a kid we used to have epic cap gun battles in my neighborhood. We would 'battle' it out all day on Saturdays and Sundays. Parents loved it. Got all the kids out of the house and we all got exercise. Funny how I am still in touch with a lot of the neighborhood kids and to a person we are all upstanding, law abiding citizens. Some of us are even business owners, doctors and even a state senator. None of us are criminals or psychopaths.

As an aside, our 3 year old daughter is just now learning how to 'play guns' in her preschool. I was shocked but pleased to see that the teachers let this kind of play go on amongst the kids. Now, she goes to a pretty good Montessori style preschool, but I was still amazed (in a good way) to hear her talk about how she 'made a gun' out of blocks. Ever since this moment, my wife and I have been teaching her about 'real' guns and how, if she ever finds one, she should not touch it, but tell a grown-up immediately. We also teach her that guns are not bad and that when she is a 'big girl' she will get to go with her daddy and brother (he is a responsible teenager) when they go to 'the range' (she doesn't really know what that is yet, but wants to go because her brother goes).

A 2nd grader in S NJ was expelled for talking about her bubble gun.
I just had a old hunting friend pass (96ish) he used to carry his 22 to grade school and put it in the coat rack. On his walk home he would try to score a squirrel or rabbit for fam dinner.
Same school. Granted it was a lot of years later. Thats how far we have shifted from self responsability. Where does that leave us in another 90 years?
I wouldnt condone any child bringing a gun to school. Having a gun certainly doesnt men that you intend to do harm with it. And in the case of the current 2nd grader. What harm could it possible do to anyone for her to talk about a "bubble gun".

__________________Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.Milton Freidman"If you find yourself in a fair fight,,,
Your tactics suck"- Unknown

Technically, the kid wasn't suspended for wrestling away the gun. The kid was suspended for refusing to assist the police investigation.

While I wouldn't have suspended him, I can see where the school might have chosen to do so.

Agreed. The suspension was a precaution taken by the school administrators erring on the side of caution pending the results of the findings from the investigation. I caught a LOT of flak from friends when I stated that the I agreed with the suspension. I am pretty sure there would have been parents with pitchforks and torches on the school superindendent's office doorstep if the kid was still walking around in school and the investigators had found that all the witnesses were lying...as kids have been known to do.

__________________
NRA Life Member (2003)
USN Retired
I think that one of the notions common to the anti-gunner is the idea that being a victim is 'noble'; as if it is better to be noble in your suffering than disruptive in your own defense.

I graduated high school almost exactly 3 weeks after Columbine. I know of people who would go squirrel or varmint hunting in the woods by the school at lunch. Every other car had a gun in it. I carried my pocket knife with me at school all the time. In one memorable instance, a teacher was having trouble opening up a package of something, so I whipped my knife out and gave it to him. He used it, thanked me and gave it back.

Guess how many school shooting happened at my school? Zero. Incidents with guns? Zero. This is as recent as 15 years ago, that life was different. I'm amazed at the nanny state crap that's been happening lately.

If you think suspension for gun shaped pop tarts and pizza is bad...read this one that just happened a few days ago:

The only time "Zero Tolerance" makes any sense is when your talking about knives...

The problem with a "Zero Tolerance" policy is it prevents cooler heads and common sense from blowing something out of preportion. (that is of course assuming that the school administration has any "common" sense)

It also teaches the kid a VERY negative lesson about being inflexable and intolerance... If you have "Zero" Tolerance than you are what?
Intolerante.

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